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To: JBTFD who wrote (3360)	10/22/2006 3:06:11 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 10087

or.. Cornucopians -- A Guide for the Perplexed Posted by Dave Cohen on Saturday September 02, 2006 at 10:17 AM EST The Oil Drum continually attracts new readers interested in what those concerned about peak oil are saying. This story is mostly for them but also may serve as an amusing review for veteran contributors or readers. It is always a good idea to get back to basics. First time posters are welcome. Part 1 defines Cornucopian Fallacies and gives a mainstream view from PFC Energy by way of contrasting such extreme views with a moderate voice in the center. Part 2 presents a taxonomy of some present day Cornucopians who believe that there are no limits to growth. Bear in mind that those concerned about peak oil are sometimes labelled with a broad brush as Cassandras predicting eschatological doom. All of us fit somewhere on this scale. The Doom & Gloomers are on the far left. The Cornucopians are on the far right. I am in the position left of center marked by an X today but that may change tomorrow should circumstances change. I believe we should never lose our sense of humor around here, a crime of which I have been guilty on occasion. Naturally, many serious points are made along the way. This post does not deal with some optimists in the energy business like Amory Lovins, CERA, Michael Lynch and CGES who deserve a more extended treatement. That will be the subject of another story. theoildrum.com ====================== Why It's Hard to Debate a Cornucopian It's much easier to tell people what they want to hear than to tell them what they need to hear. This is the first and most important advantage a cornucopian thinker has when arguing before any audience. No one really wants to hear that the future may be filled with turbulent change and personal insecurity. Perhaps more difficult to overcome is the argument that the future will be like the recent past--meaning the last couple of fossil-fueled centuries--only better. By definition there can be no proof of such an assertion. But the human tendency to extrapolate the recent past (meaning my lifetime of experiences) into the future is almost universal. When the ecological truthteller offers a different scenario, the burden of explanation is on him or her to show why the future will be different; the cornucopian is not required to mount a case other than to say something vague such as, "Everything has worked out fine so far, even though the pessimists predicted catastrophe." This is nothing more than the problem of induction which is unfathomable to many people unless it is explained very simply. One writer relates a story told by Bertrand Russell that attempts to do just that: I prefer another tale told by Bertrand Russell, which concerns a certain farmer and his turkey. From the point of view of the reflective turkey, the farmer will always greet him in the morning with a bucket of grain. Why? Because, by simple inductive reasoning, it follows that the more often this happens, the more secure [the turkey] is in the belief that it will happen again until, one morning, the farmer appears with an axe. Now from the farmer's better informed point of view, he knows that the more often the turkey gets the grain, the less likely it is that he will survive another day. Similarly, life underwriters adopt the farmer's point of view. We mistake frequency of an event for proof that it will continue in the future. Cornucopians also like to talk about how much better off nearly everyone in the world is now than in the recent past. Again, because most people have difficulty understanding the problem of induction, this claim is hard to battle. But the clever debater will show that the cornucopian is focused only on human welfare in the very short term. The eco-services that humans rely on for clean water, food production, and stable climate are actually on different and deteriorating trajectories. If the very basis for our material well-being is declining dangerously, then society's feeling of well-being will someday reverse. The big question is when. Since the ecological truthteller must now come up with a date to satisfy the audience's curiosity, he or she will offer one from the literature on global warming or water depletion or some other predicted ecological crisis. If the date is nearby, the truthteller will be subject to short-term falsification (and, in addition, to the feeling among the audience that something so horrible couldn't happen so soon and that the speaker is merely engaging in fearmongering). If he or she chooses a distant date, the audience may not see the importance of doing anything. Keep in mind that dates 20 years or more in the future seem distant to most people, and they are inclined to believe that the intervening time will be sufficient to think up and implement solutions for a known problem. Above all, cornucopians love to argue that even if many environmental problems exist, we will think up ways to solve them because we always have. They will cite clean air and clean water as successes. This is the problem of induction with a twist. It is not just faith that current trends can be endlessly extrapolated into the future, but faith that problems which could derail those felicitous trends and for which there are currently no solutions will be miraculously solved. It is as if the turkey in Bertrand Russell's story knows that the axe has fallen with regularity on other turkeys, but somehow believes that the axe "problem" will be solved before his number is up. To offer a definite date in the future for anything (accept maybe recognized holidays) is a fib. The cornucopian will easily trip up anyone claiming to be an ecological truthteller and turn him or her into a ecological liar. The calendar is already littered with disaster predictions that have not (yet) come true. But the tables can be turned on the cornucopian who likes to speak in certainties just as much as the ecological truthteller inadvisably does. We live more or less in a probabilistic universe about which our knowledge is highly imperfect. In our daily lives, however, we unconsciously know this. We take out insurance against risks which may never strike us, but the consequences of which could be catastrophic. We buy fire insurance on our homes, for example, even though home fires large enough to justify an insurance claim are very rare. Yet, we do it because we know that home fires have been known to wipe out people financially. The cornucopian has no more knowledge about the future than anyone else. And yet, even as he or she conveniently ignores negative trends, the cornucopian also tells us not to bother with insurance in the form of mitigating global warming or creating a sustainable society. The ecological truthteller now has the opportunity to fight the arrogant certitude of the cornucopian with a dose of risk assessment as follows: "Given that the consequences of global warming and resource depletion could be severe--so severe that they could bring down our modern civilization--and even if you believe that the chances of such severe consequences are small, wouldn't it be worth it to take out some insurance just in case? And, if you believe we should do nothing, why are you paying to insure your home against catastrophic but very rare occurrences such as fires? As for the date of the onset of any demonstrable crisis that we will feel personally, well, we are all like Bertrand Russell's turkey. We simply don't know when it will happen. But, unlike the turkey, we've been warned." resourceinsights.blogspot.com

To: JBTFD who wrote (3360)	10/22/2006 3:17:21 PM
From: one_less	Respond to of 10087

Israel accused of violating Geneva Conventions with Phosphorus bomb... ========================================================= Israel admits phosphor bomb use in recent war Cabinet official: Army dropped ordnance on Hezbollah guerrilla positions JERUSALEM - The Israeli army dropped phosphorous bombs on Hezbollah guerrilla targets during their war in Lebanon this summer, an Israeli Cabinet minister said Sunday, confirming Lebanese allegations for the first time. Until now, Israel had said it only used the weapons — which cause severe chemical burns — to mark targets or territory, according to Israeli media reports. But Cabinet Minister Yaakov Edri said Israel used the weapons before an Aug. 14 cease-fire went into effect, ending its 34-day war against Hezbollah. Edri said he was speaking on behalf of Defense Minister Amir Peretz, according to his spokeswoman, Orly Yehezkel. “The Israeli army holds phosphorous munitions in different forms,” Edri said. “The Israeli army made use of phosphorous shells during the war against Hezbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground.” The Lebanese government accused Israel of dropping phosphorous bombs during the war. Edri did not specify where or against what types of targets the bombs were used. White phosphorous is a translucent wax-like substance with a pungent smell that, once ignited, creates intense heat and smoke. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorous against civilians or civilian areas. The United States acknowledged last year that U.S. troops used white phosphorous as a weapon against insurgent strongholds during the battle of Fallujah in November 2004, but said it had never been used against civilian targets. Israel is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. The Israeli military said in July its use of weapons “conforms with international law” and it investigates claims of violations based on the information provided. Overall, more than 1,200 civilians were killed on both sides during the conflict, which started with Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in July. U.N. accuses both sides Both Israel and Hezbollah have been accused by the United Nations and human rights groups of violating humanitarian law during the conflict. Israel has been accused of firing as many as 4 million cluster bombs into Lebanon during the war, especially in the last hours before the cease-fire. U.N. demining experts say up to 1 million cluster bombs failed to explode immediately and continue to threaten civilians. On Sunday, a cluster bomb exploded in a southern Lebanese village, killing a 12-year-old boy and wounding his younger brother, security officials said. At least 21 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded by cluster bombs since the end of the war, the U.N. Mine Action Center said. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has been criticized for failing to distinguish between Israeli civilian and military targets. Human Rights Watch also said the militant group fired cluster bombs into civilian areas of northern Israel during the fighting.

To: JBTFD who wrote (3360)	10/23/2006 10:32:31 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10087

Re: using more energy in the future I would call this the "keep you fingers crossed" approach. I wouldn't call it an approach at all. Its an estimation of what will happen in the future, not a plan for what should be or can be done in the future. There is no way to know until we can look back as those years as the past not the future (and presumably I won't be around to do it except at the one generation time frame) but I have a high confidence that it will work out that way.